reality

No Sad Goodbyes

Saying goodbye is something many people try to avoid. Leaving is not easy, especially when it is unexpected. It isn’t much easier even it is planned. Just the other day I was driving through Kandern and saw a couple I hadn’t talked with for quite a while, and I wondered how they were doing. Imagine my surprise when just 2 days later I read on Instagram a post from them saying they had just crossed the Belgium border and were almost home, having left Kandern that morning. After 8 years, they had left. It seemed like this was planned (there was a job lined up, for example, according to the post), and they were glad for their time here. But what a surprise!

Flower
Always striving! https://www.instagram.com/p/CwKi4qyImDQ/

We feel transition is something we specialize in. Not just because we’ve done alot of it. But because we treat it seriously. We see it coming, a change, and prepare. Now, in that sense we have been fortunate. Even when Shane’s parents passed away it was not unexpected. But not just their actual death, but their leaving. When someone has left, there aren’t opportunities to say things, to talk about something, to look into their eyes and just be there with them. With my parents, in great part to the part of the world to where I first left, we also made sure to make our goodbyes a good one. We talked, we spoke, we just spent time with each other, because as my mother would say, “You never know what’s going to happen in the intervening 2 or 3 years.” So in a sense, we’d been saying goodbye for 2 decades, continuing with Liberty and then Van; we also made our goodbyes good. So when they really did pass away, we already had closure (if that is the right word). We had said what we needed, we had spoken about what needed to be covered, we spent time with each other. Even Liberty and Van know the next time we see them it will be in heaven with Jesus. Now, that is a good thing to think about!

You may be here because of a recent email. We are facing a potential goodbye. It’s an interesting one because it may not just be to a place and a ministry, but to an entire way of life. Like many other overseas workers we’ve seen, our financial income has simply dropped low enough that remaining overseas isn’t possible. And, remaining in volunteer ministry is also in question… we need to pay the bills! This means a paid position. So, the goodbye that we are keeping an eye on as it’s on the horizon is a big one.

I hope we are ready, either way.

Saying bye to our favourite jiaozi restaurant in 2018
A Black Forest landscape. Hey, where is the forest? This is looking south towards Basel, Switzerland.

Camping and Seeing God

This summer, our family went on a long-awaited camping trip. After being confined in-place for almost 2 years, it was good to be out and driving around. Mind you, we do live in a beautiful place which made most of the confinement bearable, but as a family, we were happy to be in the road again. Prices for hotels were going to be quite high, so we decided to camp. Fortunately, we found a cool tent for 4 people on sale at InterSport! We bought a few more items, and then we were off.

Now, you should understand that because this is Europe, “camping” is not quite the same as what we are used to in Canada, and even the USA. We pitched in between big RVs and trailers wherever we went. But, despite the non-wild feeling of the places, it was good to be sleeping under the sky, with fresh air, and the same midnight stumble to the central bathroom for a bathroom stop. We all had a great time, and didn’t even have any family fights setting up the tent, and taking it down. THAT was actually a lot of work, thus we have no pictures of it because by the time it was up, or down, we were ready to get in it, or ready to leave.

We camped a bit on our way to the yearly WEC conference, and for this I am grateful. I heard the news my mother’s health was poor, and that she might pass into God’s presence soon. We tried to see if the kids and I could get back in time, but it was impossible. So, Aug 11 my mother did die, and went to be with Jesus, and reunited with her hubby. It was a heavy blow. All of us were stunned. We had postponed a video chat just a week earlier, thinking we would chat after the conference. Well, here it is 2 weeks or so later, and we are home, but the shock is still there. Please pray for my family, and for those of my brother and sister, as we all press on in a world without our parents.

Cookes Overseas, this time in Paris.

We visited Paris after the conference with a goal to visit Uighur restaurants. We were aching for some good spicy food. We found three, and ate at each, one per night. Oh! You can check out my IG account to see the restaurant fronts if you want. When we were first considering coming to France, we of course had put Paris on our list of potential places to live. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option, partly because of how international the city is. But we are always impressed by (ready for something that sounds silly) how many French people are there! We rarely talked with anyone but French people, so it was a relief, in a way, to rediscover that the French capital is still very French and not only or primarily international.

  • An aerial view of waves crashing against a shore.
    Liberty still has an interest in graffiti.
  • An aerial view of a field. A road runs through the upper right corner.
    We like eating at Thai places, especially those named after the city of Van’s birth. This is actually in Toulouse.

It was good to get home eventually. The kids discovered that they are not as small and compact as the last time we went on a long car trip! So, if God wills, we will be looking into buying a larger vehicle (we don’t have a car, and in fact we’ve never had a vehicle when we’ve been overseas!). We had to go retrieve our two guinea pigs, Sunddee and Fizzgigg, from a kind lady who watched them for us. The giggly pigs were happy to see us! And, we were back into a routine, of sorts. Cleaning, sorting, and also getting ready for school.

  • An aerial view of waves crashing against a shore.
  • An aerial view of a field. A road runs through the upper right corner.
The Cookes at an overlook of the beach in downtown Biarritz.

So, I will end this post with a small request, one which applies to many of you too. Please pray as Liberty and Van re-enter school. Liberty is starting an important year in the French school system, the last year of her academic division – college. Van is in fact starting his first year of the same division, college. So, there will be new and bigger stresses for each. Due to laïcité there is very little content about God, which also means that the students, their home lives, and the entire atmosphere, is very godless. There is lots of immorality. They also deal with a surprising amount of anti-foreigner sentiments. Yes, its true! Despite how “western” and advanced and open France is, there is a constant stream of anti-foreigner feelings, including a particular anti-Americanism. It is pretty tough at times for our kids. But I am proud of them. Even though at times it seems it would be easier if they weren’t Christian, they both do their best to stand against sexual immorality, cheating, bullying, and even despair (suicide is not uncommon amongst the student body). And this is even a Catholic school, where you would think there would be a little more awareness and seeking of God, if not spirituality. But when the teachers are cruel, mock students, and care little for spiritual things, and the kids come from a home-life which also doesn’t include God, what can you expect. Pray for them!! And for the students and teachers.

Laundry Day

You just get used to doing things a certain way. I was talking with the neighbour the other day and he asked me if we used our bikes. Like, alot? He said always sees us on them. He wondered if that meant we don’t have a car. I told him we don’t have a car. That’s a funny thing about our overseas life: We have never had a car overseas. The week we get back to Canada though we buy something. One reason we don’t have a car overseas I suppose has to do with safety/insurance. Life can be tough as it is, so why add potential complications to it?

What this means in Caen, for us, is taking our laundry up to the local laundomat, or, lavomatique. We discovered these during our previous short visit to France and needed to do laundry while on the road. We discovered that these are all over the place. Most neighbourhoods will have one. They are super handy! But I imagine we are quite the sight, loading up the bikes and hauling our bags of laundry there.

Our lavomatique

But while there alot can happen. We study our French books, or listen to french lessons. We have to solve problems. One time I put in money and nothing happened. So, I called the number on the wall, not sure of what would come next, and somehow was able to explain the issue and understand that the remote technician was going to start the machine for me (he did) and then refund the money if I would place my laundry card to the payment machine. It worked! I couldn’t believe I managed to achieve that. And then the other day I met a young guy from Cuba! He was all excited, telling me that they don’t have such machines in Cuba (really?) and asking me to take his photo with the machines in the background.

Online life

One thing I regret about my early days here in Xinjiang was that I did not bring a camera. One reason for this is that I sold it to buy the one-way plane ticket! But another reason was that a foreigner walking around taking pictures would draw unwanted attention.

Well, that attention concern has never abated. But at least cell phones have cameras – so everyone is taking pictures! It is funny sometimes how people go about it here towards us. On one hand you have the bold impersonal approach – the person walks right up to us, sticks their phone in our faces and snaps a shot, then walks away. No greetings, no thank you’s. Another approach is the shy but stealthy approach – the person comes to us from the side, walking sideways, and with their phone tucked in their arm they sneak a picture. Then there are the friendly types who actually smile, say Ni Hao or hello, or здравствуйте, and make small talk, AND THEN ask for a picture. To those we most often acquiesce.

But what do we use to back up all our photos and videos? Let me share a number of free and paid-for services.

We use Flickr, and so use the Flickr app to backup photos, when on wifi, to our account. For this we paid for the Pro account which gets us 1TB. We also use Amazon Prime and their associated Unlimited Prime Photos backup. Then, just to be sure, we use Shoebox which has a nice feature of showing us weekly what we were doing 1, 2, 5, and 10+ years ago. Its a nice way to go down memory lane. Since I have a Google Nexus phone my pics also are automatically backed up to Google Photos too, once again only on wifi and when the VPNs are on. So that is at least FOUR methods on the cellphones alone. We also move the photos to our computers and external hard drives, which in turn get backed up online! We don’t want to take any chance.

When we want to print them out from here we so far have used Mixbook the most often, although some of the other services look like they have good deals from time to time.

Moving and traveling

We recently had a lovely and encouraging visit from some Canadian friends who live in a nearby city. They are new; among the various stories and tales we told there was a bit about being happy and content in good living conditions, or not so good living conditions. The day after they left we received a message from the school: We are moving you to another apartment, and you need to do it in a week. What?! We went and looked at the other apartment and compared to the one we first moved into, it was a mess. Dirty, full of broken furniture, and missing important items that the contract stipulated would be provided. Saying, “NO” rarely works in China, so it is better to decide on how far you might bend, then start bargaining from there. “Bargaining when there is a contract??” It is true, that is how things are done here.

welcome
Long story short, we agreed to move but only after the school had improved the next place and included the missing appliances. We heard the expected, “But move now and we will get those things for you in the next few days.” IF they actually went through with it, it would involve an unknown number of weeks of us waiting, patiently, then reminding them, hearing “Oh, tomorrow!”, then more waiting, until we either give up, or they live up to the contract.
imagery

So it has been a stressful week, compounded by the fact that we also had bought train tickets and hotels for 10 days in Urumqi. We leave tomorrow.
The word from the school has been that they still want us to move “within a week”, the end of which would be tomorrow. That is the day we leave on the train. We have packed up alot anyway. But the apartment also is not ready. So we don’t expect that it will actually be ready since we saw them start the work yesterday afternoon. BUT, we would not be surprised if they break into our apartment and move everything while we are gone.

So a few prayer requests:
A) That our stress decreases as we lean on our loving Father who has all of this in control;
B) That the school won’t be sneaky and move us;
C) and that if they do, that nothing will be broken or stolen;
D) That Michelle and I can set a good example for Liberty and Van when it comes to attitudes, and trust, and being content.

IMG_20160731_135140 copy

A life

There is an emotion we experience from time to time: Woe is me! Particularly these days as we wait for the paperwork and visa, initially with some uncertainty, certainly with faith, and now with anticipation. Many friends have had kind words for us, encouraging us to enjoy these extra days we have in Canada. I do not feel I am in a position to say that God held us back in order of us to be able to attend Michelle’s grandmother’s funeral. But I am glad we were still here so that we could do that. If God has some specific purpose for this delay I think it could very well be for something about which we may have no awareness. Some conversation with someone that would not have happened if we had left August 20. Some act of service or gift to someone we would not have been able to do if we were not here. More family time. More McDonalds or Tim Hortons time.

I am almost of the opinion that trying to figure what His purpose is behind some situation may simply be counter-productive. It sure can add to stress in your life as you wonder and fret, “Was this the reason? Did I miss it last night at that meeting?”

The couple in the photograph, as far as I can tell based on what I know about China, likely have done this job for decades, and will continue to this job for decades: Gather papers and other items which can sold (in these modern times, recycled). My Western eyes see a life’s possibilities wasted. No travel. No education. No broad impact on the world around them. But these people are also quite likely Christians! There are estimated to be 100 million Chinese Christians in China (that is, Han Chinese specifically, not counting other ethnicities such as Kazak or Uyghur or Dongshan, i.e.). Wondering if they are Christians brings to mind Colossians 3:17 (NIV):

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

This verse has been what is in my mind these days. I pray it be so for you too.

Couple

The lineup

As a cultural aside, we had an interesting dynamic in the China Visa Centre on Thursday. When we got there we were impressed by the shiny new entrance and huge waiting area (with comfortable seats!). But there were two lines to get into initially. At the front of the two lines was one clerk who would look over your documents before giving you a number. We were sent to Line Two. In Line One were at least 5 people already waiting. As we stood there thinking we would be waiting at least 5 peoples’ worth of time, the clerk looked up and called us forward. That sent several of the other people in Line One into fits, demanding to know why they were still waiting. But we went anyway. Why?

In China the bureaucrat rules! The person may seem like a lowly entry clerk, but their word can make or break your own attempts at whatever you are doing. In our case, let’s say we did what a good Canadian would do: We would say, “Oh no, please, these others were before me, we can wait.” But this would communicate the opposite of the intended meaning. Instead of appearing as polite people, we in fact would be telling the clerk that we think she did something wrong, either by not noticing those already waiting, or by not serving them first. And by saying it publicly we would also be putting her down, in essence, in front of those waiting. Those waiting would feel justified in their outrage and further berate the clerk. Pandemonium.

Her reaction would likely be as follows: She would stare at us, then glare at us, and proceed to serve everyone else, even those who came even later, and make us wait as retribution for our public rebuke of her. Once she ran out of excuses to ignore us, she would also have decided to make things difficult for us. All in all, in a moment of supposed Canadian politeness could turn everything upside down! So it pays to know a culture, and to follow its rules when need be.

Lineups

Lineups

Friends

Overseas we often experience some very cool encounters. You may have heard me tell of some. For example, one day I woke up with this one Kazak guy I had met years and years ago on my mind. But how would I ever find him? I met him during my first time overseas, and here I was in my third term, married, in a different part of the city doing something completely different. Well, I prayed God would do something, and then went out.

It was to the bank I had to go for rent was due. This means we use the ATM to withdraw renminbi. On this particular day I decided to try a new bank near our home, thinking it might save me some time. I stuck my Canadian debit card in, punched in the pin, waited…. and realized the machine had taken my card! Argh! What was hoped to be a time-saver was now turning into something I thought would suck the rest of my day out of my hands.

I managed to pray, calm down, and tried to call the number on the ATM sign but of course no one answered. Usually it is no use to go into the branch because everyone there will hum and haw and claim to not know what to do. But I felt compelled to try. In I went, saw the usual stiffening of everyone’s spines as they spy a real live foreigner walk in, and I head towards the most managerial looking person I can find. They can’t escape. I pull out another card, and with miming motions indicate that their ATM took my card and could I have it back. They reply, as far as my Chinese can discern, that they need their manager to check for me. Ok. I wait.

A few minutes later out of the office walks the very same Kazak guy about whom I had been thinking about that morning. The same Kazak guy who I thought for sure I would never be able to find. I didn’t even remember his home town. Him. Here. Right in front of me. And if I was surprised, you can imagine how shocked he was because he also had woken up that morning wondering if he’d ever see his old Canadian friend again. As great as it was that I did actually get my ATM card back, thanks to him, it was even more amazing to reconnect with him. God. Did. It.

But you know what is weird. in 20 years I have only ever bumped into an old school friend from Canada, in Canada, once or twice. Being back in Hamilton now, and driving around, going here and there, I would expect I would bump into some of my elementary, or high school, or uni friends. But nope. This only happens overseas. With Kazaks, and the odd Chinese, Mongol or Uighur.